61 HISTORICAL NOTICE OF THE RAPE OF LUCRECE. Painter has inserted the story of Lucrece in the first volume of his Palace of Pleasure, 1567, on which our author is supposed to have formed this poem, which was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company, May 9th, 1594, and was first printed in quarto in the same year. It was again published in 8vo. in 1598, 1600, and 1607. In 1616 another edition appeared, which in the title-page is said to be 'newly revised and corrected;' although it is pronounced by Malone to be the most inaccurate and corrupt of all the ancient copies; and bearing evident marks of the revisai of another hand. 43 THE EPISTLE. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHField. The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honorable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater: meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wi Long life, still lengthened with happiness. Your lordship's in all duty. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, THE RAPE OF LUCRECE. ARGUMENT.1 Lucius Tarquinius, for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus, after he had caused his own father-in-law, Servius Tullius, to be cruelly murdered, and, contrary to the Romar. laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom;-went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea; during which siege, the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after supper, every one commended the virtues of his own wife; among whom, Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humor they all posted to Rome; and intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds his wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several disports: whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus the victory, and his wife the fame. At that time Sextus Tarquinius, being inflamed with Lucrece' beauty, yet smothering his passions for the present, departed with the rest back to the camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself, and was, according to his estate, royally entertained and lodged by Lucrece at Collatium. The same night, he 1 This argument appears to have been written by Shakspeare, being prefixed to the original edition of 1594. |